Returning to Tobacco Dock with our headline partner Accenture in November, the WIRED world will come to life for a multi-sensory experience curated by the WIRED editorial team.

Meet the inspiration behind some of WIRED's most favourite features as they take the stage to share their most compelling stories – and in the process, inspire you to change the way you see the world.

OPENING ADDRESS

Sadiq Khan

Mayor of London

Advertisement

As Mayor, Sadiq Khan has championed London as a hub for technology and innovation, and has recently recruited London’s first chief digital officer to work with him on making London the world’s leading smart city. The Mayor will speak about London’s place as a world-leading hub of innovation and how City Hall is attracting investment, supporting growth – especially for startups – and broadening access to digital skills opportunities.

Read next

WIRED Live 2017: The best of the WIRED world

Advertisement

General Sir Richard Barrons, KCB, CBE

Former commander Joint Forces Command, UK Armed Forces

As one of the six “chiefs of staff” leading the UK Armed Forces, Barrons’ career has spanned military operations from Bosnia to Kosovo to Afghanistan. He currently focuses on cyber strategy and applying disruptive technology to business, society, government and defence.

Behshad Behzadi

Senior engineering director, Google Assistant

Behshad Behzadi leads a team of more than 100 engineers focused on developing Google Assistant, which uses AI to help people get things done through natural, two-way conversation.

Professor Dame Sue Black

Director, Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification, University of DundeeScottish forensic anthropologist and human anatomist Sue Black has worked on identification initiatives after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, in criminal cold cases and forensic work in Kosovo.

Matt Brittin

President, EMEA Business & Operations, Google

World Rowing Championships medallist-turned-Google Europe chief Matt Brittin is the company’s senior lead on strategy, opportunities and response to conditions across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Maya Brehm

Advisor, Article 36

Article 36 works to prevent unnecessary harm caused by weapons. Brehm specialises in humanitarian disarmament and previously led research on autonomous weapon systems at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.

Rose Bretécher

Author and mental-health advocate

Rose Bretécher shared her compelling story on intrusive sexual thoughts in her memoir Pure, which will be adapted in a six-part Channel 4 drama series.

Richard Browning

Founder and inventor, Gravity

Real life Iron Man Richard Browning is pioneering authentic human flight. As head of aeronautical engineering startups Gravity, Browning is challenging perceived boundaries to human aviation and inspiring new generations.

Joy Buolamwini

Founder, Algorithmic Justice League, MIT

Joy Buolamwini is on a mission to fight bias in machine learning, a phenomenon she calls the “coded gaze”. She’s a social-impact technologist, short-form film-maker, speaker and poet of code based at MIT.

Dame Sally Davies

Chief Medical Officer of England

As chief medical officer of the UK government, Davies acts as its principal medical advisor on all issues relating to public health.

Todd Eckert

Founder, Tin Drum

Tin Drum is a production studio specialising in Mixed Reality. Eckert founded the company in 2016 following his tenure as director of content development for Magic Leap. He also produced Control, the award-winning film about Joy Division’s Ian Curtis.

Marcus Engman

Head of Design, IKEA

IKEA’s focus on democratic design is at the heart of its continued success. Engman’s team creates engaging, borderless customer experiences through its products.

Brian Fishman

Counterterrorism policy manager, Facebook

Brian Fishman is the author of The Master Plan: ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Jihadi Strategy for final Victory and previously served as the director of research at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

Mo Gawdat

Chief Business Officer, Google X and author of Solve for Happy

Entrepreneur, remarkable thinker and chief business officer of Google’s elite team of engineers, Gawdat used his training and background to create the equation for happiness.

Rama Gheerawo

Director, Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design

Rama Gheerawo works on international projects for design, including the redesign of the London taxi and the driverless vehicle consortium in Britain.

Carrie Goldberg

Founding attorney, C. A. Goldberg

A pioneer in the field of sexual privacy, Carrie Goldberg litigates for victims of online harassment, sexual assault, blackmail and anti-abortion terrorism. She fights against non-consensual pornography and educates people on how to protect themselves.

Simon Haddadin

CEO and co-founder, Franka Emika

Simon Haddadin’s company Franka Emika creates collaborative robots, or cobots, made to work alongside humans.

Whitney Wolfe Herd

Bjørn Ihler

Ihler survived the 2011 terror attack in Norway. Now he is one of ten campaigners behind counter-extremism initiative Extremely Together.

Mary Lou Jepsen

Founder, Openwater

A former alumni of Facebook, Oculus VR and Google[x], Mary Lou Jepsen founded Openwater, whose goal is to look deep into the body with the detail of a high-resolution 3D camera.

Dr Elias Knubben

Head of Corporate Bionic Projects, Festo

Elias Knubben is responsible for the conceptual design and project management of the bionic projects at Festo, which takes principles from nature and applies them in technical applications and industrial practice. Its projects include the AirPenguin, the BionicOpter and eMotionButterflies

Sarah Lacy

Founder, CEO and editor-in-chief, PandoMedia

Award-winning journalist Sarah Lacy is waging a war against internet trolls and guilt-tripping cyberbullies for her new community dedicated to working mums.

Romy Lorenz

Neuroscientist, Imperial College London

Cognitive neuroscientist Romy Lorenz specialises in brain-computer interfaces and is building an AI neuroscientist, which she expects to increase the speed and reliability of brain scans.

Firuzeh Mahmoudi

Brian Mullins

Founder, DAQRI

Augmented reality company DAQRI has created professional-grade Smart Helmet to enhance human capabilities. Most recently, DAQRI has collaborated with the US Navy to use the Smart Helmet to train its Navy gunners.

Herman Narula

Co-founder and CEO, Improbable

Improbable co-founder Narula is building the Matrix. His company’s large-scale, complex simulations use virtual worlds to understand more about how we work, play, think and act.

Ilkka Paananen

CEO, Supercell

Supercell is the Helsinki-based mobile games developer behind Clash of Clans, Hay Day, Boom Beach and Clash Royale. Since its founding in 2010, Supercell's games have amassed 100 million daily players and remain in the global top ten years after launch – in June 2016, it became the first European technology startup to reach a valuation of $10 billion.

Eduardo Aguilar Peláez

Head of Technology, Helix

Helix aims to address healthcare problems through research and design in this joint collaboration between Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art.

Yana Peel CEO

The Serpentine Galleries London

The Serpentine Galleries are one of the most recognised organisations in art and design. Peel is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and a regular contributor to the Davos Annual Meeting and DLD.

Annie Powell

Solicitor, Leigh Day

Powell took on employment law’s “case of the year” in 2016, defending the worker’s rights of 19 Uber drivers.

Lisa Randall

Professor of physics, Harvard University

Theoretical physicist Lisa Randall explains how dark matter could have led to the extinction of dinosaurs millions of years ago.

Nico Rosberg

Former Formula One racing driver and the 2016 Formula One world champion

With a racing record of 23 career wins and 30 pole positions, former Formula One racing driver Rosberg has a lifetime of experience in competition, training and winning.

Marcus du Sautoy FRS OBE

Professor of Mathematics, University of Oxford

Simonyi professor and mathematician du Sautoy shares his unique perspective of the world through prime numbers, symmetry and patterns.

Anil Seth

Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience Co-Director, Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science Editor-in-Chief, Neuroscience of Consciousness, University of Sussex, UK

A professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience, Seth’s search for the biological basis of consciousness has implications for what it means to be human

Noel Sharkey

Emeritus professor of AI and robotics, University of Sheffield

Noel Sharkey’s expertise puts him in a unique position to focus on ethical and responsibility issues in the use of AI and robotics.

Marcus Shingles

CEO, XPRIZE

XPRIZE is solving the world’s grandest social challenges using crowd-sourcing, competitions and exponential technologies.

Lotje Sodderland

Director

In her award-winning debut film My Beautiful Broken Brain, film-maker Lotje Sodderland explores resilience and the mind following her recovery from an intracerebral haemorrhage.

Charles Spence

Professor of Experimental Psychology & University Lecturer, Somerville College

Experimental psychologist Spence concocts dream-like food, drink and fragrances. He established the Oxford University’s Crossmodal Research Laboratory and collaborates with mixologists, baristas, chefs and perfumers on multi-sensory experiences.

Mustafa Suleyman

Co-founder and head of applied AI, DeepMind

Co-founder of Google DeepMind and head of applied AI, Suleyman oversees the company’s projects to simulate brain-like neural networks.

Eleanor Stride

Professor of Engineering Science and Fellow of St Catherine's College, University of Oxford

Oxford University professor Eleanor Stride is boosting cancer therapy to reduce the side-effects of treatment by using targeted drugs housed in microbubbles.

Dado Valentic

Chief creative technologist, Acute Art

After working on films and TV shows such as Sherlock Holmes, Game of Thrones and Total Recall, Dado Valentic is now developing a new approach to working in VR.

Margrethe Vestager

EU Commissioner of Competition

Holding one of the most powerful positions in Europe, Margrethe Vestager is responsible for creating jobs, promoting growth and enforcing competition rules. Her decisions could change the way technology giants such as Google, Apple and Amazon operate.

Jimmy Wales

Founder of Wikipedia and WikiTribune

The founder of the world’s fifth-most-visited website wants to use Wikipedia’s fact-checking mentality to go after fake news.

Access Stage Speakers

Eduardo Aguilar Peláez

Helix aims to address healthcare problems through research and design in this joint collaboration between Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art.

Marc Allera

CEO, BT’s consumer brands: EE, BT and Plusnet

Marc is responsible for connecting more than 30 million people across the UK to the internet – and to each other. Marc is leading investment into the next generation of connectivity, from 5G to ultrafast broadband, paving the way for new digital services, applications and ideas.

Mohammad Al-Ubaydli

CEO, Patients Knows Best

Paddy Butler

Curator, Libreria Bookshop

Libreria tailors reading experiences to inspire creativity through the arrangement of books according to themes and unexpected connections.

Tony Conigliaro

Creative Director, The Drink Factory

Drinks creator and pioneer Conigliaro uses his encyclopaedic knowledge of spirits and flavour to change the rules of cocktail-making and taste-fusing, which are featured in his award-winning venues, Bar With No Name and Bar Termini.

Alex Depledge

Founder, BuildPath

Serial entrepreneur responsible for starting and scaling Hassle.com across Europe prior to sale. Now leading BuildPath which is the UK & Ireland's first online architectural platform.

Avril Furness

VR film-maker and director

With her film The Last Moments, Avril Furness is using virtual reality to help people understand assisted suicide.

Charmian Love

Co-Founder, B Lab UK

Jojo Mayer

Musician

Eugen Miropolski

Managing director, WeWork

Bill Gajda

Senior vice president, Innovation and Strategic Partnerships, Visa

Bill Gajda is the Global Head of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships, responsible for VISA’s Innovation programs and activities in Europe and CEMEA. He is responsible for Visa’s global relationships with Mobile Operators and leads the ‘VISA Ready’ and Venture Capital programs.

Rama Gheerawo

Director, Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Royal College of Art

Rama Gheerawo works on international projects for design, including the redesign of the London taxi and the driverless vehicle consortium in Britain.

Carrie Goldberg

Founding attorney, C. A. Goldberg

A pioneer in the field of sexual privacy, Carrie Goldberg litigates for victims of online harassment, sexual assault, blackmail and anti-abortion terrorism. She fights against non-consensual pornography and educates people on how to protect themselves.

Simon Haddadin

CEO and co-founder, FRANKA EMIKA

Simon Haddadin’s company FRANKA EMIKA creates collaborative robots, or cobots, made to work alongside humans.

Romy Lorenz

Neuroscientist, Imperial College London

Cognitive neuroscientist Romy Lorenz specialises in brain-computer interfaces and is building an AI neuroscientist, which she expects to increase the speed and reliability of brain scans.